


Trust in the unexpected

by middlemarch



Category: Mercy Street (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Conversation, F/M, Married Life, Reference To Past Episodes, Romance, Season 3, Vignette
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-08
Updated: 2018-02-08
Packaged: 2019-03-15 12:44:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 460
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13613640
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/middlemarch/pseuds/middlemarch
Summary: Revisiting the past.





	Trust in the unexpected

“So, would you say,” Jed murmured, kissing his way along her neck, across her clavicle, his hair ruffled from her caresses, “would you say, Mary, that you always tell the truth?”

He lifted his head up to look at her, his dark eyes teasing and serious, reminding her of that first day, when he had stepped too close, gazed too directly, ordering her instead of asking. When he had waited to see how she would respond and she’d felt her spirit rise, even as she strove for an expression of utter unperturbed composure. She could not have accomplished the feat now, bared to him in every way, wanting again and delighted by her hunger, by his ease in tempting her and in satisfying her; she had not tried to keep herself from trembling as he embraced her, nor from letting him hear the depth and breadth of her love when she cried out. She would answer this latest question and watch him herself to divine his purpose.

“Yes, I do. I try to—to tell the truth,” she said. His hands were stroking her, slowly, thoroughly, as if he would gentle her and not rouse her. Except that this also made her gasp and reach for him, her wedding ring catching an errant flicker of candlelight and gleaming with it, as if it were an enchantment.

“So, you were lying when you said you would not be beguiled again?” he said, his voice in her ear. She laughed at how he’d caught her out and also in sympathy with that former self, Mary von Olnhausen, not yet Molly Foster, who had clenched her fists and said the words with an earnest bitterness to try to force them to be honest. To be the final statement. When they were neither—not honest, nor final, a wish perhaps, a wish that he would argue or try to persuade, would find a way to redeem himself, so her affection could be matched by her respect. It was a lifetime ago and less than a year. He was kissing her again while she thought, his lips soft on her cheek, grazing her mouth, becoming slower, warmer, less concerned with anything but the pleasure he took in her, that he gave to her.

“No,” she managed to say, to whisper.

“No?” he repeated, nearly all his clever, tender derision gone from his tone. 

“Beguilement means diversion, deception,” she explained, arching into him, hooking her right leg over his thigh. His arms tightened around her and she could not help smiling at him. “And this, this is the most real thing there is, how I love you, oh, the utmost verity, Jedediah.”

“Molly!” was the last word he said—and the beginning of his own answer.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Emily Dickinson.


End file.
